"Oh, I do want to go, I do!" she cried, wild with eagerness. And then she drew her little crutch toward her, and painfully raised herself and stood there waiting.
"Oh, can't we go now?" she asked, in an eager whisper. "It's almost time for Mrs. McGuire." Just then the carriage came up to the sidewalk, and I carried my poor little foundling home.
Yesterday was the anniversary of my dear mother's death, and I lived over again the old sorrow, tasted its bitterness anew. I laid my head on the pillow where she died, and sobbed out the passion of desolation which swept over me. And as I lay there crying I heard gentle footsteps, and then felt soft lips on my cheek, and heard a voice,—
"Oh, can't I comfort you, Miss Bessie? Can't I do any thing for you, now you've made my life all new and bright?"
And I opened my arms, and took into them my little dark-eyed, bright-haired girl, and realized that God indeed had sent me my comforter,—a comforter found, as my mother had predicted, when I forgot myself in trying to comfort one yet more desolate.
I should never have dared to act upon the impulse which led me to bring the child home, had I been less utterly alone in the world. But I have never regretted it. I found that her parents had brought her up in the fear of God, and all the rude and rough associations, which had worked their worst on her after her mother's death, had never soiled her innate purity. My care and tenderness have made of her all I hoped. Dr. West's skill has almost cured her lameness, and she walks without a crutch now, and with only the slightest suggestion of a limp. She helps me at my tasks, and for her sake I have recalled my old pencil craft, and here I foresee that the pupil is soon to surpass her teacher; and some day I fancy you may see on the walls of the academy a picture by a girl artist with brown eyes and auburn hair,—the child who was my comforter.